Puritans Influence On American Culture

Malleable Puritan thought laid the foundation for arguably the greatest civilization in history, The United States of America. Authors Perry Miller and Edmund Morgan chronicle Puritan history and describe how the Puritans left the Old World and began to transform the New World, and themselves, based off of experiences in their respective writings. Miller and Morgan use the word “experience” very differently when describing our Puritan forefathers, but they draw upon similar conclusions. Puritan thought was constantly transforming through physical, intellectual, and spiritual experiences.

The Puritans brought strong religious beliefs to the colonies where they established a holy Commonwealth. They left an impact on both religious

The Puritans created a religiously repressive society that greatly influenced the overall development of New England. Although their society revolved around the church, were all of their beliefs detrimental to the evolution of the colony? Regarding New England’s social development, the Puritans’ stress on community, family and education was advantageous because it caused the region to thrive with more families and small towns. Therefore, since Puritans were more likely to come to the New World’s families instead of individuals, New England had significantly more families settle there than in other regions of colonization. Additionally, Puritans emphasized the importance of a community living together and sustaining its members, which resulted in New England being marked by the development of

The idea of the United States having Puritan origins is still alive today. In Sarah Vowell’s, The Wordy Shipmates, the topic of how a nation affiliates itself with Puritan perspectives is introduced. She encourages one to look beyond the surface information of the first English settlers’ motives in the 1600s, and to investigate what Puritan views truly are. She mentions the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, expressing his freedom to enforce his religious views on to a whole colony of people. The superiors of this religious group decided in the colonies what was appropriate for the society they are creating.

The Puritans was a huge deal in the 1600s. It consisted of colonists who were seeking religious tolerance. Puritans were so strict that it was so far fetched from tolerant. One would be punished to not attend church, it was against the law. Men and women were separated through the day long services.

About a century later, during the 1630’s, the Puritans decided that the best way to reform was to emigrate away from the Church of England. Author David Hall claims “excitement ran high that a new kind of society was being created, a community without “the unclean conversation of the wicked” as Thomas Weld reported to his former parishioners in England.” They called this society “New England” and the puritans were one of the many religious movements able to escape to it, but their historical timing was in no way unique. The Puritans eventually realized that they’re next step was developing their society, shaping its system to fit their beliefs.

Because Puritans faced countless persecutions in England, many fled to Holland. In 1620, fearing that they would lose their identity as English Protestants, a small group set out for the New World in hopes of building a new society based on the Word of God. Convictions of the Puritans helped shaped the American character. Such convictions included moral, ethical, and religious. There were approximately twenty thousand English Puritans in New England by 1640.

More than 80% of Americans have Puritan ancestors who emigrated to Colonial America on the Mayflower, and other ships, in the 1630’s (“Puritanism”). Puritanism had an early start due to strong main beliefs that, when challenged, caused major conflict like the Salem Witch Trials. Puritanism had an extremely rocky beginning, starting with a separation from the Roman Catholic Church. Starting in 1606, a group of villagers in Scrooby, England left the church of England and formed a congregation called the Separatist Church, and the members were called The puritans (“Pilgrims”).

The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.

The Puritan colonists were bound by laws of morality with judgments with sentences that were the base of fear. The laws were centered on the basics of not going to church daily to practicing witchcraft, adultery, even not having regular sex to procreate. There were many laws of the time with cause and effect that harmed many people. Through the seventeenth century, laws were connected to morality, reflected in the ways Puritans used religious beliefs in the process of rendering judgment and assigning punishments to keep colonists from leaving their colony and gaining freedoms of their own. Puritan Religion ~

Puritans believed nothing was more important than education, because it would rear children properly and allow for their society to prosper and survive. ” … Puritans taught their children to read and write.” (Hollitz, Page 22) Learning to write gave children the ability to write diaries, letters, and many other writings which permitted them to express their feelings, keep notes, and learn. Reading was very important to Puritans and was heavily taught in schools, because it was “one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures.”

The ideas constructed by the Puritans were not simply a principal starting point for American culture because they were the first in the country, but because they offered distinct ways of thinking that are still deep-seated in our culture today. Although many of the ideas of Puritans have evolved or vanished over time, it is important to give credit to the Puritan writers and thinkers such as John Winthrop and John Cotton who offered ideas that were new at the time and that stayed with the American consciousness—culturally, socially, and politically. “John Winthrop's legacy can be seen primarily in the fields of government, commerce, and religion. It was religion that would most impact John's life; his religion would ultimately impact the

The lifestyle that the Puritans lived affected their lives along with others around them, since many spoke out their full mind when someone was not acting how a Puritan would. Puritanism was a very common practice because of its ability to influence other and so both the poor, educated, and the average farmer were all normally was influenced by

They wanted to create pure, moral Christian society based on moral living. By hard working, integration of religion in politics, and social development of certain lifestyle practices, Puritans had a large influence on the development of the New England colonies from 1630s through the 1660s. Puritans believed in hard work as the pathway of success since they thought they were favored by God to succeed (Doc I). They tried to shun idleness and believed that being lazy is not profitable (Doc C).

Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”